It’s making me miss school, where I first learned the art of
narrative juggling. I miss talking about books, analyzing books, living in
books. I think I need to join a book club or something.

I haven’t read this much since the summer of 2009 where I
annihilated fifty novels in three months. I wrote my first novel after that.

Hopefully, I’m gearing up for another one those writing
explosions. I’m apparently in the mass consumption phase of the writing
process. Release must be close behind.

Either way, it’s been reminding me about what I like and
don’t like about story telling. The way that I’m naturally drawn to character
driven works, how I can’t connect to anything if I can’t connect to the people,
what a good metaphor looks like, what a bad one looks like, dialogue that
works, the irksomeness that is dialogue tags before dialogue, or the way words
like “just,” “that,” or “literally” make my skin crawl when they cross that
thin line between sparingly and every other sentence.

I forgot how good
reading was for teaching. I want to pursue my master’s in Creative Writing, but
I don’t think that’s going to teach me how to write, only how to write better.
Books are the best writing teachers, especially when you learn to separate the
good ones from the bad ones and take in all their flaws and perfections as ammo
for your own.

I haven’t kept up with my review series, yet. I still have a
review for “Tilt” coming. Now add “The Archived” and “Eleanor and Park” to that
list.

Here’s the part where I come to you for recommendations. I
need titles people, books you love. I want to love them, too. Or politely hate
them. Any genre really. I haven’t fallen in love with any recent mysteries or
suspense books lately, so that could be fun. Let me peak in your awesome
bookshelves and pilfer what strikes my fancy.

Seriously, Googling books is a drain on valuable reading
time. Just point me in the right direction.

Friday, March 14, 2014

I’d like to say I had an über productive week full of
writing, editing, and general goal fulfillment, but that’d be a lie.

I had an average week full of editing other people’s
manuscripts, plotting two of my stories for CampNanoWrimo (fellow Campers,
leave a comment; let’s be camp buddies, full of tin can and a string
conversations with a side of melodramatic crying over low word counts), and
reading.

One of my New Year Resolutions was to read a book a week for
2014. Yeah, I haven’t lived up to that goal. But, I’m not being too hard on
myself. I endeavored on American Gods as
my week two book, and I couldn’t get into it. So, it sits on my shelf, 120
pages unread …

That’s not to say I haven’t been reading. I’ve been reading
a lot, but most are unpublished works I get paid to read and, as they’re
unpublished, cannot review yet. But, this past weekend, I finished Tilt by Ellen Hopkins, which is a
602-page book of poems that make up a narrative.

Look for the official review next week.

My writing progress has been slow. I’m in a weird writing
point where the ideas are flowing, but the follow through is abysmal. I get
half way through, and my interest fizzles out.

I believe my own fear of writing suckage is preventing me
from committing to a story line I worry is going to fail before it gets on the
page.

This is a self-inflicted problem and, luckily, surmountable.

My plan of attack is to leash my inner-editor and
critic—better yet, wrap that sucker in chains and throw it off this writing
ship—and finish something, anything really, by the end of March.

This plan is two-fold. A) I really do need to get something
revisable so I can start shipping my work out to the masses (the last time I
was published was in 2011…three years ago…ugh), and B) so I can carry that
sense of accomplishment into the CampNano cabins where I will try to get my
next gold star for a finished novel.

Monday, March 10, 2014

It’s been a boring week, an escape week. I haven’t really
done much of accomplishing anything. Actually, I played a lot of video
games, mainly Skyrim, so maybe that can stand as my accomplishment.

I think I’ve finally processed the whole my dad has cancer
thing. After three weeks of constantly centering my thoughts and research on
it, I’ve come to understand that it’s out of my hands.

There’s nothing I can do but try to make his journey easier
with my support. He’s remained remarkably chipper despite his irritation at the
amount of sciencey stuff being done to him. The man hates doctors.

But as time has passed, things have returned to some kind of
normal with not so normal conversations about treatments and statistics.

Stress takes a lot out of you; and as my mind calmed from
dad worries, money worries, and life worries, my mind, body, and soul needed to recuperate. So, I
took a stay-cation.

We’re talking books, movies, and video games. Even though
I’ve finally started to lose weight again, I even ordered out so I could take a
vacation from cooking too (I kept it light with a sandwich and sweet potato
fries, but it’s still the first bit of bread I’ve had in a while).

I may be behind on my personal writing, but I don’t regret
giving myself a week to do nothing. Boredom sucks, and I had many moments of it
over this past week; I enjoyed how it sucked. Not filling my free time with
worries was like an energy drink for the soul.

Now refreshed, I’m going to keep a better tap on my worries.
I’ll still give myself that daily moment to flip out about life’s
uncontrollables, but I’m going to find the off button quicker.

About Me

I am a 26 year old recent college grad with a Bachelor of Arts in English. I love writing, reading and picture taking. My life consists of preparing to marry my husband-to-be, taking care of my furbabies and preparing for grad school. Most, if not all, my images are taken with my iphone. You are more than welcome to use a copy of anything you'd like, but I request that you give credit were credit is due and link it back.
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